I enlisted into the noble corps of the Royal Auvergne. My training
began, and I was promised that, if I behaved well, I should be admitted
by-and-by into the first company of Grenadiers. I soon had a powdered
_queue_ falling in an imposing fashion over my white vest, but I no
longer had Pierrette, or her mother, or the curé of Montreuil, and I
made no more music.
One fine day, when I, confined to the barracks, was undergoing some
absurd little punishment for having made three errors in the management
of my arms, I received a visit from Michel.
"Ah, Mathurin!" he said to me, "you are well punished for having left
Montreuil. You enjoy no longer the counsel and instruction of the good
curé, and you are fast forgetting the music which you used to love so
well."
"No matter," said I; "I have my wish."
"You no longer tend the fruit trees and gather the peaches of Montreuil
with your Pierrette, who is as fresh and sweet as they."
"No matter," said I; "I have my wish."
"You will have to work hard for a very long time before you can become
even a corporal."
"No matter," said I, again; "when I am a sergeant, I will marry
Pierrette."
"Ah, Mathurin!" continued my friend; "believe me, you are unwise. You
have too much ambition and pride. Would you not like someone to buy you
out, so that you might return to marry Pierrette?"
[Illustration: "BELIEVE ME, YOU ARE UNWISE."]
"Michel! Michel!" I cried; "have you not often told me yourself, 'Each
one must make his own lot'? I do not choose to marry Pierrette with the
money of others, and I am making my own lot, as you see. Besides, it was
the Queen who put this idea into my head, and the Queen _must_ know
best. She said: 'He will be a soldier, and I will marry you to him.' She
did not say, 'He will return after having been a soldier.'"
"But suppose," said Michel, "the Queen were to provide you with the
means of marrying, would you not accept her bounty?"
"No, Michel! Even if such an unlikely thing were to happen, I would not
take her money."
"And if Pierrette herself earned her _dot_?"
"Then, Michel, I would marry her at once."
"Well!" returned he, "I will tell that to the Queen."
"Are you crazy?" I said to him, "or are you now a servant in her house?"
"Neither the one nor the other, Mathurin, although I no longer cut
stone."
"What do you cut, then?" asked I.
"I cut pieces, out of paper and ink."
"Is it possible?"
"Yes, my boy; I write simple little plays, easy to be understood. Some
day, perhaps, you shall see one."